End Of Testimony Clears Way For Final Stages

Lawyers Finish Presenting Evidence

July 11, 1991|By EDMUND MAHONY; Courant Staff Writer

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the federal racketeering trial of eight reputed members and associates of the Patriarca crime family 14 finished presenting evidence Wednesday and plan to turn the case over to jurors next week.

The defense attorneys concluded their case with testimony from a woman who questioned the credibility of the government's star witnesses -- mob turncoats John F. "Sonny" Castagna and his son, Jack Johns.

Castagna and Johns, in their agreement with the FBI, admitted that they conspired to murder Patriarca family underboss William "The Wild Guy" Grasso with four of the men on trial. They said Grasso was shot in the neck June 13, 1989, after three failed murder attempts.

Annie Milano, the sister-in-law of defendant Gaetano Milano, testified in Hartford Wednesday that she was with Milano at a graduation party June 11, 1989, the date of one of the aborted murder attempts described by Castagna and Johns.

Annie Milano also said her brother-in-law was eating a pizza lunch with her and other relatives June 15, 1989, the day Castagna and Johns said members of the mob's Connecticut crew met to discuss Grasso's murder.

Federal prosecutor John Durham played one secretly made tape recording Wednesday to rebut a portion of the defense case. It was the last of about 120 such recordings -- made using telephone taps and hidden microphones -- introduced as evidence by the government.

The recording, made from a microphone installed in East Hartford mob soldier Louis Failla's car, captured a conversation between Failla and Luis "Tito" Morales, the father of his grandson. The microphone in Failla's car was one of the most productive installed by the FBI. Failla's rapid-fire, tough-guy talk has become a familiar sound in federal court as the recordings have been played for jurors since the trial began in late April.

On the recording played Wednesday, Failla complains to Morales about, among other things, how the brakes in his car are shot because of all the driving he has been doing among Hartford, Providence and Boston. The recording was made Aug. 16, 1989.

There has been extensive testimony during the trial about how the Patriarca family was on the brink of a bloody factional war during the summer of 1989, after Grasso's assassination. Castagna and Johns testified that Grasso was killed on the orders of a renegade mob faction in Boston as the opening move in an attempt to grab control of the rackets across New England.

A shaky truce was negotiated between mob factions in Boston and Providence shortly after Grasso's death, evidence presented at the trial shows. Arranging the truce involved numerous meetings among gangsters around New England. The evidence suggests Failla frequently drove his bugged Cadillac to many of the meetings.

The trial is not schedued to reconvene in public session until Monday. In the interim, the defense and prosecution attorneys plan to meet with U.S. District Judge Alan H. Nevas to discuss how jurors should be instructed to deliberate about the case and how concluding arguments should be presented.

Nevas estimated that once the trial resumes Monday, closing arguments and his charge to the jury could take three to four days.